Friday, January 22, 2010

For those who have asked, here are a couple of out-takes from the documentary of my tour of Finland last Summer. The film itself is very different from these out-takes. It's much faster and funnier and cooler. But here is some of the stuff that didn't make the final cut:

MEDITATION VS. ZAZEN

Link for those reading on Facebook:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNmdtlueAAM

IS DOING ZAZEN BECOMING A BUDDHA?

Link for those reading on Facebook:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1-6fzzQB3o

The filmmakers are currently looking for a distributor. Interested parties are invited to contact me at spoozilla@gmail.com & I'll put you in touch.

DON'T FORGET: ZAZEN AT 10 AM TOMORROW AT HILL STREET CENTER (237 Hill St., Santa Monica, CA 90405). Details are on your left at the link titled Weekly Zazen Classes on Saturday mornings. It happens every ding-dang week. Show up for once!

175 comments:

Consider the difference between the 'first wave' of Western Zen as an appendage to the whole 60s 'peace and love' hippie thang, and then the second wave of zennies who came out of the edgier 70s and 80s.

Two different worlds in many senses. We'd be bullshitting ourselves if we said we weren't (partly at least) a product of our times.

There are surely a lot of Zen folks who are a product of the Hippie scene days, that era and culture and that 'freedom', 'peace', 'love' and all that jive (and all the insincere bullshit that undoubtedly goes with it).

The later bunch (of which I am one) are more characterised by cynicism than 'trust', and are more characterised as 'angry', questioning types than 'love' types (and there's certainly a whole brand of bullshit that goes along with this too).

This is all gross generalising of course, and I'll happily leave it to others to make something of it (if indeed there's something in it).

...The Jundo vs Brad dint-match seems to be some sort of microcosm of it all. :-))

Remember the old punker saying: "Never trust a hippie"?

Certainly some of the most insincere and dubious fuckers I ever met wore long hair and spouted the 'peace and love' bullshit (and they may even have believed it too!... pure delusion).

My group of punkist reprobates, if I'm honest, were a bunch of antisocial, uniform wearing wasters, so we're not exactly a good argument for the new wave culture.

I've never heard anyone invite invitations or demand strikings of the bell in thet bunch I sit with. When it's time to sit, we all enter the zendo, get sat, and the guy with the bell, seeing that we're sat, makes it go di-i-i-i-i-i-ing with a stick. No words - no problem.

Like Brad said about the media stereotype of punks - same goes for hippies. The guys I spent my dopey days with were pretty unpleasant head-trippers and mind-fcukers. Not an ounce of peace or love between the lot of em.

To clarify -The unpleasant mind-fucking hippies I mentioned above were my close friends. They were very intelligent, challenging and inspiring people, a couple of whom have remained intelligent, challenging and inspiring mind-fucking friends to this day.

The artistic and social revolution of the mid-late 60's was a far more fundamental, significant upheaval than the brief, superficial rebellion of the late 70's.

What about beat Zen? Didn't the American sub-culture interest in Buddhism kind of start there? Odd enough when you consider the term "beat" in part takes its name from Catholicism.

I think the interest there was on the subject of human suffering. The Cross, The First Noble Truth, The BEATtitudes. If hippie zen was peace and love, and punk zen was edgy and questioning authority, what was beat zen?

I'm too young to have been around for hippie or punk zen, let alone beat, but to me it would seem to the beats it had more to do with understanding the blessings of life despite all of the perceived hardships.

It's late (again) here in the UK, so I gotta crash, man! Before I do...

I don't know much about the Beats and their zen. What you say about the emphasis on suffering is interesting. But I can shed no light. I'd like to know more.

I got interested in zen way before I turned on, tuned in and dropped out: I was 13 years old when I first encountered the music and writing of American zen influenced avant-garde composer John Cage, and thence DT Suzuki. They both made a deep impression on my impressionable young mind.

Cage's interest in Zen was pre-Beat (1940s) and he was pretty much a pioneer, along with a couple of other artists, in modern matters musical/artistic and zen. When I became aware of 'Beat Zen' a few years later, I wasn't impressed - although I did really enjoy Alan Watts (Beat...maybe?).

1940s wasn't pre-beat. The beat generation began in the 1940s. It just didn't reach publication as the beat movement in literature until the 1950s. But it's a moot point b/c Buddhism did not make its way into Beat culture until the 50s.

The reason Buddhism managed to take root in the beat movement was specifically because of its manner of addressing suffering. Beat meant beaten down in life, it meant suffering, but it also meant being blessed. literally. It comes from the latin for blessed "beati" and the guy who came up with the term was a Roman Catholic. There's no doubt that The Beatitudes had a lot to do with name of the generation/movement.

Thanks for the clarification, Kev. I associate Beat with, as wiki puts it, the "Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s". But sure, the roots of things go back...and back.

Hi Phil - Being who and what I am, I'm very unlikely to take your advice. But your comment has the ring of possible truth. What do you see as the connection between misanthropy and the need to be heard? I'd appreciate some insight. I'm serious.

Kerouac's interest in Buddhism did not begin until the mid to late 1950s. His early works had no Buddhistic influence.And he had not yet developed an interest in Buddhism when he coined the term "beat".

Not sure what you meant by Kerouac was both. Do you mean he was both a Buddhist and a Roman Catholic? In which case he was a Catholic who went through a Buddhist phase. Late in his all too short life he returned to Catholicism (stating that the Dharma had gone cold to him) and spent his latter years painting images of The Cross and The Virgin.

Or did you mean he was both Buddhist and Beat? Because by the time Lonesome Traveler came out he wrote: "am strangely not beat, but strange solitary Catholic mystic" May not have that exact, going on memory.

Wondering if the temples that were in California in the 1930s attracted many westerners at all, or if they primarily existed to serve the needs of Asian immigrants?

Poor Jack, he drank himself to death. And his poor mother. She outlived her husband and all three of her children. Says on his grave "he honored life". Wish he had honored his own a little bit more.

Refined & so well-thinking historian & why not scientifically wise compassionate enacting buddha za-ing zen-ists : upâyas are as many as there are concerned beings &, dare I, all this is just a blessing from any tenth ground bodhisattva, with or without literature & Japanese words (so nice)...

"Nanyue, the teacher, asked Mazu who was sitting zazen, “What are you trying to do sitting in meditation?” And Mazu said, “I’m trying to make a Buddha.” Or we could say, “I am aiming at becoming Buddha.” So his teacher Nanyue hearing that picked up a tile and sat and started polishing it. Finally Mazu noticed this and asked, “Teacher, what are you doing?” And Nanyue said, “I’m polishing this tile to make it into a mirror.” Mazu said, “How could you make a mirror from polishing a tile?” And Nanyue said, “How can you make a Buddha from sitting zazen?”

Alan Watts used to tell this story as an excuse for not needing to sit zazen. But Dogen has a different spin on it..."

(From 'Sweeping Zen' site).

I believe the bold is found in AW's earlier writing (eg "The Way of Zen"); later in his life he did practice zazen.

I haven’t really been reading what you (plural) have written about hippies and the sort.

My comment has nothing to do with that.

I don’t think in “It's about space men becoming junkies” Bowie has been more serious than I’ve been in “That won’t save you, man”. (that’s just between you and me, - I don’t think anybody else has read this, - else than Harry I mean, he’s real quick)

Bowie hasn’t been that serious in the lines I quoted either.

But I think they’re really beautiful.

They seem to me to be said in a kind of feeling of guilt or something of the sort. - Bowie’s presenting Major Tom in a kind of a stupid light, but that’s beside the point.

I thought I kind of had to put them up in relation to Brads words of not doing good or bad in the second video.

They seem to express something real nice.

I’ve never heard Bowie sing as good as he does on this song.

And it’s a bit funny for me calling him a hippie. He used to be a man of the eighties during the seventies. I don’t think you can call him, or Iggy Pop, or anyone of the Velvet Underground, or Jim Morrison – a hippie. Perhaps for a real short time during the beginning of his career.

And I have here a nice nursery rhyme for you.

I don’t know what “******* up the teeth” means - (we don’t get taught very well at the transportation company) but you seem to be taking that all too seriously.

Actually, it all began when the British, in the name of "free" trade, waged war upon the Chinese, because Chinese law required that custom officers should seize and destroy any drugs smuggled into China. When the British were in a narrow position, they were rescued by the USA. Talk about karma...

Certainly some of the most insincere and dubious fuckers I ever met wore long hair and spouted the 'peace and love' bullshit

I was 20 in 1968 and was quite "peace and love" albeit with a not so idealistic knack. I found out that the loudest of all those were authoritarians, and I told quite a few of my entourage that, once in a position of power, those would be far worse than all those "bourgeois capitalists" whom they so violently denounced. Time gave me right.

At the time of punks, I was so disgusted with disco music that I really welcomed punk music. But still, my pragmatic attitude kept me from taking the fuckers too seriously. "Fuck the system" a lot, but keep taking advantage of it, and where is the rationale? Inconsistency everywhere.

Those who pursue a star by thinking they will eventually be able to reach it end up forsaking the star and going back on their traces, mistakenly believing that following the star was pointless.

Presently in France there is a lot of earlier Maoist and Trostskist "philosophers", journalists and politicians who take part into a "reflexion circle" affiliated to the PNAC (of Dick Cheney un-fame).

[From: Wheels of Fire LP (studio)]In the white room with black curtains near the station.Black-roof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings.Silver horses run down moonbeams in your dark eyes.Dawn-light smiles on you leaving, my contentment.I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines;Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves.You said no strings could secure you at the station.Platform ticket, restless diesels, goodbye windows.I walked into such a sad time at the station.As I walked out, felt my own need just beginning.I'll wait in the queue when the trains come back;Lie with you where the shadows run from themselves.At the party she was kindness in the hard crowd.Consolation for the old wound now forgotten.Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.I'll sleep in this place with the lonely crowd;Lie in the dark where the shadows run from themselves.

[From: Live Cream Vol. 2:]In the white room with black curtains near the station.Black-roof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings.Silver horses run down moonbeams in your dark eyes.She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.And I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines;Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves.You said no strings could secure you at the station.Platform ticket, restless diesels, goodbye windows.As I walked in such a bad time at the station.As I walked out, felt my own needs just beginning.And I'll wait in the queue when the trains come back;Lie with you where the shadows run from themselves.

At the party she was kindness in the hard crowd.Consolation for the old wound now forgovern.Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.

And I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines;Lie in the dark where the shadows run from themselves.

I suggest that they distribute the documentary themselves. On a smaller project like this it's better to launch a small website and distribute it. One will profit from this much more than distribution. One realizes that one needs P.R. to get the word out there and that may take money. But, with the advent of the internet and some work that too can be taken care of. Distributors need Lawyers, PR people, Secretaries, etc, this cuts into the pie and leaves the film maker with no money. Which is fine, but if one makes a bit of money , one can put it to another project.

Drugs were normative in the formative periods of religions. That is why Buddhism is not a religion - no drugs.

Wanna understand the scriptures of Judahism, Xtianity, or Islam? Do some Graduate Study on "the psychology of compulsive-addictive control freaks" and you are well on your way. Sorry, but many (even most?) religious people are unbalanced.

One potential of zazen is the restoration of balance (e.g. restoration of some semblance of reality).

I think we are confusing a word with an idea. Hippie is a pop culture reference for a 60's style Bohemian. No real hippie ever referred to himself as a hippie if that makes any sense. After about 1966 it became fashionable to look like a 'hippie' and the movement was co-opted by commercialism. 'Bohemianism' is a more encompassing word for various subcultural movements. There were people before Gary Snyder who were outsiders living apart from mainstream society and were not bothered by its disapproval. There was a long-haired unemployed surf culture in California and poor East Coast artists and writers living in the less expensive immigrant neighborhoods way before the word hippie was coined. These struggling Artists often adopted the habits and look of their Eastern European neighbors when neither could afford regular haircuts or new clothes. Sometime in the 19th century, Bohemian became synonymous with writers. Mark Twain counted himself as a Bohemian. Poet George Sterling noted there are two main elements of Bohemianism. The first is devotion to one or more of the Seven Arts.. the other is poverty.

Want to know about Kerouac?It's an anagram of 'our cake'!Now THAT'S the source of all wisdom!Move letters around and make something else...Move words around and make ourselves look all 'enlightened'...Or should I say 'need thin leg'?

Valspeak is often spoken with a heavy accent sometimes associated with Californians. Words are spoken with high variation in pitch combined with very open or nasal vowel sounds. Example: "OH MY GAWD, Check out this bitchin Wiki link!"

More examples:

* Whatever! - short for "whatever you say"; sarcastic interjection often emphasizing the "er". * Like - Used as an interjection. " that was so, like, oh my God." * As if – lit. "yeah, right" or "as if" except it does not use a subject; expresses disbelief. * Bitchin' - adj. slang for excellent; first-rate. Though a derivative of "bitch", bitchin' is sometimes not considered profane.

* Meaning: "I don't believe you", "I don't care", etc. * Usage: Used as a complete sentence to dismiss a topic, often during situations where the person delivering the phrase understands that the argument is lost or pointless. Special emphasis is placed on "Ever". It is used as an often weak comeback to other's insults. * Example: "That was like, the worst Wiki link ever!

Personally, the zennist's impression of Brad seems superficial, and though I don't know much about The Genp (or geology), the Z's take seems off on BMtm, too. I mean, besides the fact that he seems to think it's a good idea.

The post says "Finnish Documentary" and includes a couple of brief clips about how Zazen is a simple practice. I guess I'm stupid but most of the 106 comments don't seem to have much to do with this. So does 'comment' mean 'say something about the post (such as make an observation or ask a question) because people come to this site to learn something' or does it mean 'spew out the first stupid piece of irrelevant shit your tepid mind can produce because you think you're some sort of Guru'? Might I suggest that comments about previous posts be written under those posts or would that prevent our more needy cousins gaining the limelight they (and their lame ideas) so desperately crave? Me included I know but I listen to shit all day long and a visit to a Buddhist website could be so much more uplifting...

You could've made a comment, or asked a question, about the simple practice of zazen, for example, but no - you chose to spew out the first stupid piece of irrelevant shit your tepid mind can produce because you think you're some sort of Guru'.

...If you scroll back through the previous post or three (and actually read the comments) you'll see that there are quite a few exchanges about Proper Buddhist Matters, which led to this place. All dependently arising, you see.

Occasionally there will be an uplifting post provided by someone but mostly it is just chatter. Most of us here are minor actors in this tragic and hilarious blog. If you are looking to be uplifted I would suggest music.

anon108 - I see you deleted your post.Spew out? Yes.Some of the message lost?Sadly so.Thanks for your feedback.I was too young to be a hippieAnd too old to be a punk.Never felt the need to get stuck in time like that.So I just tell it how I see it. Without feeling the need to belong to one school or the other.Which was the attraction of the middle way.And the 'Emperor's Not Wearing Any Clothes' School.So occasionally I spew out.And people with a stronger need to belong feel threatened.Which is cool if those are the kind of beliefs they claim to be seeking to transcend.And if what they actually want is certainty and friendship they've always got Facebook.

I think your suggestion - that the hippy/punk/invite/strike the bell comments should've continued on the previous post - is a perfectly reasonable one, but it got lost in the "spew out...stupid piece of irrelevant shit...tepid mind...some sort of Guru...needy cousins...lame ideas...shit" shit.

It would work even better with a "latest comments" sidebar.

On this occasion the topic carried over with Harry's 1st comment ("Oh WANK!"). Harry is a punk and can be a little mischievous. Nice to have a bit of chaos and humour, I think.

To clarify - I've not been a "hippy" since 1975. And I'm pretty sure Harry no longer pogos (but I could be wrong). Most of the hippy/punk comments were a bit of fun, with the odd piece of interesting info. Nevertheless, I think there's little doubt - 'self' or 'no-self' - that what we are is also what we were. The present includes the past...

FWIW I think the conversation b/w you and iliti demonstrates that harsh words lead to more harsh words.

Thanks for re-posting anon108.Sans-spew my comment would read:Look, Brad's put up a post which includes video clips about Zazen and an encouragement to attend Zazen sittings. So how come Zen people talk so little about Zazen and more about Hippes, Punks, Bowie, Zappa etc? I wonder if such an obvious, mildly worded comment would have been noticed in the throng - which is partly why the wording was so forthright. Happy sitting!

To clarify what I mean--at best, what you'll find here is a loose affiliation of philosophers who subscribe to the idea of 'action in the present moment' and sometimes like to chat about a bunch of crap too.

Zen Masters, to the extent they can be said to exist, are typically found sitting on cushions, facing a wall somewhere. Two different things. Maybe.

Maybe because to do the zazen and then get on with your life is the way. As part of our lives some of us like having fun on this blog. At the same time we find out about ourselves by publishing thoughts and seeing what comes back. Here, fortunately, there are no restrictions on what is 'appropriate' for a buddhist blog and what isn't.

There are other places where erudite types do little else but discuss what their zen/buddhism - and everybody else's - is and should be. That's good too, but there's only so much you can usefully say about sitting, I think.

Maybe because to do the zazen and then get on with your life is the way. As part of our lives some of us like having fun on this blog. At the same time we find out about ourselves by publishing thoughts and seeing what comes back. Here, fortunately, there are no restrictions on what is 'appropriate' for a buddhist blog and what isn't.

That's right. However, it is also a bit like going to a class to learn about fencing and having a teacher who just lets everyone spend the whole time texting and shooting spitballs.

ya ever notice that whenever 108 is here, Harry shows up too.. And why did the American government so rapidly recycle the steel from WTC7, and why has the media remaining silent about it? what the fug is going on?

Sit Zazen and then get on with your life. Of course the Blog is part of life but life is short. Some may come to a site like this for guidance on the simple matter of Zazen rather than the trappings of special titles, costumes, food, smells and sounds. Isn't this the attraction of no frills punk Zen?It would therefore be a shame if they then get distracted by trying to belong to the cool club which replaces all this unecessary Buddhist stuff with 60's, 70's 80's etc popular culture. Of course Zazen and life are all the same. So let's talk about how to fix washing machines, how to do an environmentally friendly white wash or change a car tire in the absence of a wheel wrench rather than engage in schoolyard popularism - even if in the form of membership of the outgroup behind the bikesheds. Must go sit...

Back atcha says floors yours.I have no answers only questions. Like always.I am a learner not a teacher.Sometimes my questions are phrased as statements and on occasions they can be asked (perhaps too?)directly.But they are questions.My last was 'Why do we spend so little time discussing the core practice?'In his post Brad says "Show up for once!"So I'm asking why do so few people show up to do the core practice?

usually when asking questions, we are looking for answers that are most like the ones we have already identified as 'truth'. zen is about letting go of those 'truths'.. the practice is not more about some future undiscovered 'truth' than the present means. There is no end in zen that is not already there. zazen is the means and the end.

Of course not.. that would be un-boodhist.. I've read enough of your comments (before you deleted them) to have noticed that you will often respond to criticism with something very similar to anger. And you do seem to have a problem with our Christian neighbors who you often reference negatively. I know I certainly feel superior whenever you do that. Thank God you can rein in your unwholesome feelings before they turn to hate..

I don't do group sitting much because it's usually something of a middle class social activity - the Upper Middle Way I believe it's called over the pond. If Zazen is so good I guess you learn the technique and then stay at home doing it. Maybe that's why people don't turn up? And that would give them more time to talk about it wouldn't it? Anon, you're missing a trick!

With regard to anon at 1:32 PM,- I would like to quote Master Dogen at length:

“At the present time in the great kingdom of Song, there is a group of unreliable fellows who have now formed such a crowd that they cannot be beaten by a few real [people]. They say that the present talk of the East Mountain moving on water, and stories such as Nansen’s sickle, are stories beyond rational understanding. Their idea is as follows: “A story which involves images and thoughts is not a Zen story of the Buddhist patriarchs. Stories beyond rational understanding are the stories of the Buddhist patriarchs. This is why we esteem Ōbaku’s use of the stick and Rinzai’s shout, which are beyond rational understanding and which do not involve images and thoughts, as the great realization before the sprouting of creation. The reason that the expedient means of many past masters employ tangle-cutting phrases is that [those phrases] are beyond rational understanding.”Those fellows who speak like this have never met a true teacher and they have no eyes of learning in practice; they are small dogs who do not deserve to be discussed. For the last two or three hundred years in the land of Song there have been many such demons and shavelings [like those] in the band of six. It is pitiful that the great truth of the Buddhist Patriarch is going to ruin. The understanding of these [shavelings] is inferior even to that of śrāvakas of the Small Vehicle; they are more stupid than non-Buddhists. They are not laypeople, they are not monks, they are not human beings, and they are not gods; they are more stupid than animals learning the Buddha’s truth. What the shavelings call “stories beyond rational understanding” are beyond rational understanding only to them; the Buddhist patriarchs are not like that. Even though [rational ways] are not rationally understood by those [shavelings], we should not fail to learn in practice the Buddhist patriarchs’ ways of rational understanding. If ultimately there is no rational understanding, the reasoning which those [shavelings] have now set forth also cannot hit the target.”.

However – still – I would point that toward the end of the quote Master Dogen uses the expression “learn in practice”: – i.e. – mainly by means of the body, - only consequently, - the mind.

In a way – this doesn’t make sense. – What the fuck do I need the body for for rational understanding?Well I don’t. – But for the verification of the data I don’t even notice needs verification – I do.

We’ve got all those wrong assumptions we don’t even consider might be wrong – and as we are accustomed to our rough and dirty thinking systems we do not notice that they are such until they tend to become somewhat otherwise.

As our systems clean and refine we acquire the ability to understand what we have not been able to understand earlier.

Particularly because society is led by all the wrong people we are getting all the wrong views. (I suppose you understand this is said in a manner of speaking but it is to a great extent so.)

I’d dare say the situation is so bad that teachers like Brad or Nishijima Roshi can not, - never actually, - present things just the way they are, since people will not believe them or will not understand.

Trust me there are more controversial matters than war Brad will not bring up. Not now at least. And not in a situation I can imagine in a near future.

So far for that.

Still Dogen’s words stand as they are.

(I think there is one point that could be made with regard to that, but I will not.)

If, for one reason or another you (really) can't sit cross-legged, then sitting on your knees is, in most zen pracice in the west, regarded as 'next best thing' (and some prefer it to sitting cross-legged) - so for you it's the very best thing! What else can you do but your best?

The Japanese call it seiza - and the bench I guess you've ordered is known as a seiza bench.